Witness This

Three years ago, National Review published my article on Whittaker Chambers and his home in Maryland (where his son still lives). The news hook was an eminent domain threat to the property. My ulterior motive was pure conservative dweebery: I wanted to see where Chambers had stashed the Pumpkin Papers. When it comes to this sort of thing, I’m 100-percent geek. On the wall in my office, I have a framed illustration of prothonotary warblers. Why? Read this.

So this week’s NROpodcast was a natural. Richard M. Reinsch II has written an excellent new book on Chambers–and, for a change of pace, it doesn’t dwell on the Alger Hiss case. Instead, Reinsch deals with Chambers as a writer and thinker. Chambers was of course an excellent writer. Anybody who has read Witness knows that. He was also a deep thinker–and Reinsch makes the case for his continuing relevance in the 21st century, after the fall of the Soviet Union.